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Data governance definition
Data governance is a system for defining who within an organization has authority and control over data assets and how those data assets may be used. It encompasses the people, processes, and technologies required to manage and protect data assets.
The Data Governance Institute defines data governance as "a system of decision rights and accountabilities for information-related processes, executed according to agreed-upon models which describe who can take what actions with what information, and when, under what circumstances, using what methods."
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The Data Management Association (DAMA) International defines data governance as the "planning, oversight, and control over management of data and the use of data and data-related sources."
Data governance vs. data management
Data governance is just one part of the overall discipline of data management, though an important one. Whereas data governance is about the roles, responsibilities, and processes for ensuring accountability for and ownership of data assets, DAMA defines data management as "an overarching term that describes the processes used to plan, specify, enable, create, acquire, maintain, use, archive, retrieve, control, and purge data.
While data management has become a common term for the discipline, it is sometimes referred to as data resource management or enterprise information management. Gartner describes EIM as "an integrative discipline for structuring, describing, and governing information assets across organizational and technical boundaries to improve efficiency, promote transparency, and enable business insight."
Data governance framework
Data governance may best be thought of as a function that supports an organization’s overarching data management strategy. A data governance framework provides your organization with a holistic approach to collecting, managing, securing, and storing data. To help understand what a data governance framework should cover, DAMA envisions data management as a wheel, with data governance as the hub from which the following 10 data management knowledge areas radiate:
* Data architecture: The overall structure of data and data-related resources as an integral part of the enterprise architecture
* Data modeling and design: Analysis, design, building, testing, and maintenance
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